


Character Origin: Dusk

by SnowTiefling



Category: D&D - Fandom
Genre: D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowTiefling/pseuds/SnowTiefling
Summary: Origin story for my tiefling warlock
Kudos: 2





	Character Origin: Dusk

He had had the gag in his mouth for so long he could no longer taste it. From outside he could hear the cultists chanting in a language he could not fathom, the cadence seemed broken and discordant while still darkly rhythmic. The other 6 urchins the cultists had taken from the streets were long gone, sacrificed one by one. He was to be the last, the cult leader had decreed in her croaking voice as they had put the children into the hidden room. “The blood of a tiefling is full of arcane potential. This child’s death shall be the final key to opening the door to glory and power!”

He was weak, they had barely provided him enough food and water to keep him alive. He knew that in a few hours he would be led out of the room and sacrificed. He moved his hands behind his back, aching from the strain, and ground the rope that restrained him against the rough stone. He prayed that he would be able to free himself before death came for him.

The chanting stopped.

There were sounds of battle. The sound of screams and steel ringing against steel. The wet thud of bodies. Echoing sounds of a mage or priest doling out incantations to deliver death with spells. Dusk hurried his actions, tears streaming down his cheeks. Seconds passed, then minutes, and the sounds of battle quieted. He tried to scream out but his voice was muffled. They wouldn’t hear him, couldn’t! But perhaps they would find the hidden door to his prison.

Minutes passed that felt like hours as he thrashed and screamed into his gag until his already raw throat gave out. No one came for him. The door did not open.

The rope finally parted and Dusk was free, yanking the gag out he took a long shuddering breath and stretched, his entire body felt heavy. Needles pricked his skin as blood finally flowed back into cramped limbs. He crawled to the door, not yet able to stand. It was unlocked. The cultists had been sure that they would not be found out, and that their prisoners would not escape.

He opened the door, blinking into the dim light. The cultists were dead. All 13 of them lay scattered around their small blasphemous temple, blood had congealed on the tile floor. He moved shakily, searching first for food and drink. He found their stores easily enough and gorged himself better than he had in years honestly, the life of a street urchin had made him lean and there had been many times where he had been close to starving. The hard bread and cheese was like a feast to him, the tough jerky fine cuisine. 

Sated he took his time picking through the cultists belongings. He found a few coins, a bag which he promptly stuffed with food. The daggers he kept, knowing that once he got back onto the streets a weapon would be necessary as either barter or for self defense.

When he found the cult leaders body he stopped, his eye twitching. This was the woman who had murdered his friends for dark power. He screamed, kicking her dead body, cursing in common and infernal, releasing days of pain and fear in a savage flurry of impotent rage. Her body rolled, bumping into the alter, he screamed at it too, lost in his brief grief and fear fueled rampage, and he shoved at its heavy stone.

The alter did not care, and Dusk collapsed next to the corpse of his tormentor, heaving deep breaths, he shook his head and stared around the room. Then he noticed something, his kicking had knocked loose a stone at the base of the alter. Curious he pried it loose, and found a small bundle. 

He unwrapped it slowly and found a cold stone carving, perhaps of black and green marble, of some creature from a madman’s nightmare, all tentacles and eyes and gaping maws. He wrapped it back up and almost put it back under the altar but stopped, even this might be worth something to the right buyer. He kept it.

Exhausted, Dusk found the cult leaders private chambers and lay down, falling into a deep slumber immediately. The dream took him. “What are you?” The layered voice scraped against his ears and his mind. Dusk couldn’t move, in the dream his body was restrained, held in something that felt like mucus that seeped into his pores. He wasn’t sure if he was asleep. He didn’t want to be awake. “A mortal dreaming has come to feed me.”The voice whispered, as if from inside his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and refused to open them, not wanting to see whatever was speaking. Something rasped across his face, a rough tongue or pseudopod that left a trail of drool across his skin before it passed through his skin like it wasn’t there to move against his brain. He screamed as dozens more repeated the process.

“Fear. Pain. I can taste your life little mortal.” The voice in his mind echoed and reverberated as if coming from a dozen mouths at once, each one slightly different in tone and tempo. “I see those fools thought your soul was food for me.” Was that what it sounded like when a nightmare laughed. “I would have devoured them just as I will with you.”

“You like my pain?” Dusk whispered, not sure if he had said it outloud or in his mind but the slimy barbed things that passed through his very mind slowed. “I can give you more. Let me live, please, and you can feel everything until I die.”

Laughing, the thing pulled back from him. “You amuse me. Food almost never amuses me.” Dozens, no hundreds of voices spoke in broken harmony. “I will spare you.”

Dusk sat upright, sweat and slime dripping from him onto the ruined sheets. He felt new knowledge inside of him. Power. Power and a link to something unspeakably ancient and amoral.


End file.
